When an 80-year-old knight of the realm punched a male singer 50 years his junior for reasons that seem petty to most of us, Sir John Eliot Gardiner was the author of his own misfortune. For tragedy on a grander scale we turn to Berlioz. Make that tragedies, because in Les Troyens we get two for the price of one: first the capture of Troy by Greeks bearing gifts, then the flight of Aeneas and his fellow-survivors to Carthage where our hero begins a doomed love affair with Queen Dido.
It takes four hours of music plus intervals to tell both these tales, yet at the Royal Albert Hall the time flew by. Credit for that rests not just with the composer but with every single person on the packed platform. At the end of a stressful international tour most of them must have been running on empty, yet there was no sign of it. There were heroes at every turn, none more than Dinis Sousa, who shouldered his promotion from assistant to maestro with relaxed aplomb. The 34-year-old Portuguese conductor took on one of the biggest projects in all opera and never put a foot wrong; the Monteverdi Choir sang like angels for him while the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique gave a performance of startling virtuosity.
Unlikelier heroes were the young singers who stepped in to fill roles that had been sung by bass William Thomas, who sadly withdrew from the last two performances. King Priam was well taken by Tristan Hambleton while Alex Rosen sang the more substantial character of Narbal and did so with immense panache. (Neither artist received a credit in the hall, whether via an addendum slip or posted notices. So much for saving paper.)
Part 1 of Les Troyens has a vibrant theatrical pulse thanks to the dominant presence of Cassandre, the seer, whose prophesies steer the drama through to the Trojan Horse and beyond. The role needs a singer of presence and power, and in Alice Coote we got one. The prodigious mezzo-soprano has seldom sounded more glorious than she did here, resplendent in a rose-gold gown and emoting fit to bust. The Carthaginian Part 2 is less terse and has a looser narrative pulse, but its mood of romance is a gift for whoever sings Dido. Paula Murrihy acted the role as affectingly as she sang it, especially in her tender duet with Aeneas (Énée), “Nuit d'ivresse et d'extase infinie!”.
The character of Énée is the only one to dominate both parts of the drama, and his role grows bigger the further we get into the opera. It requires a tenor of huge stamina as well as a heroic voice, and in recent years Michael Spyres has made the role his own. This tireless artist sounded as strong in the Act 5 scena “Inutiles regrets!” as he had appeared languorous and amorous in that earlier love music.
Passing reference only, alas, to the other fine performances. Beth Taylor sang the vital role of Anna, Dido’s sister and confidante, with a gorgeous contralto timbre while the sweet tenor of young Laurence Kilsby gilded the special moments of both Iopas and Hylas. Lionel Lhote (Chorèbe), Adèle Charvet (Ascagne) and Ashley Riches (Panthée) all contributed valuable cameos, and no less a figure than Rebecca Evans sang the tiny but vital role of Hecuba.
Attempts at semi-staging made a faintly chaotic transfer to the idiosyncratic proportions of the Royal Albert Hall, especially when hordes of choristers bumped their way around the platform, but for a company that was at the end of its tour that was an excusable glitch. Considering they’d just flown in from the Berlin leg of their tumultuous travels, everything they did achieve was a marvel.
